Cyberwarfare isn’t Game of Thrones. A Wall Won't Work. With General Stanley McChrystal | Big Think

Cyberwarfare isn’t Game of Thrones. A Wall Won't Work. With General Stanley McChrystal

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According to retired U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, top-notch cybersecurity isn't modeled after the Maginot Line or a giant wall attempting to block outside forces from getting in. Instead, we need to design cybersecurity that acts like an immune system, learning on the go every time a new or unique challenge emerges.

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STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL:

Stanley Allen McChrystal is a retired United States Army general, described by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates as, "perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I (have) ever met." His last assignment was as Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He previously served as Director, Joint Staff from August 2008 to June 2009 and as Commander, Joint Special Operations Command from 2003 to 2008. McChrystal was reportedly known for saying and thinking what other military leaders were afraid to; this was one of the reasons cited for his appointment to lead all forces in Afghanistan. He held the post from June 15, 2009, to June 23, 2010.

McChrystal has since joined the Yale University faculty, teaching courses in International Relations. His latest book is Team of Teams.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Stanley McChrystal: Cybersecurity is a unique challenge today because one, we are so utterly dependent upon our digital communications and our digital control of things and so it's going to become ever more essential that we have the ability to provide security that we're confident in. The challenge is if we were against Doctor No or Mr. Big in a cave somewhere and they got a bunch of people working, you could understand the threat and you could sort of limit the threat and the threat would have a predictable limitation in what they could do. They'd have to pick an avenue of approach and they'd have to go at that avenue of approach because they can't do all things at all times.

The problem with the cybersecurity; that's not the threat. There are some entities like that. There are some state-sponsored entities that are focused on certain things, but the barrier to entry into the cyberworld is very low. You can get in your basement in your boxers shorts and you can have a computer and you can get into the game. And it's sort of the idea of 10,000 monkeys typing on 10,000 keyboards; somebody is going to create a cybersecurity challenge. And it's constantly morphing and adapting, whereas the cyber security requirement is to protect things so you essentially have to protect everything that you value all the time. The people who want to attack that can attack at their choosing wherever they want and constantly change their attacks. Constantly just like water goes against a dam, it just goes until it finds the weakest point. At some point, something happens — technology changes, human error, technological glitch or whatever. There's a good likelihood that they'll get in.

And so, if you think about the cybersecurity problem the first thing I don't think will work is the Maginot Line. The Maginot Line was created by the French in the 1930s to prevent the Germans from doing a repeat of the first World War and invading France from Germany. People think of it now as the stupidest thing ever built, but it's not really correct because the Maginot Line actually worked. The Germans did not invade across the German/French border. Now, the fact is they went through Belgium. They still got into France and conquered France in the summer of 1940.

So I think the lesson to be learned is there has to be defensive things set up as best we can for cybersecurity, but it's going to have to be this constantly adapting, constantly morphing, defense in depth, with some offense too, with going out and figuring out where the threats are arising. And that defense in depth means that you can't have one line. The government can't put a big wall up and everybody hides behind it, nor do we want each organization, each commercial firm or government organization to be an island onto themselves just hoping that they're not the weakest wildebeest in the herd and that the lions will get somebody else.

What we really need is all those entities to be linked so that they constantly learn from one another. If one suffers a breach, everyone has to learn from it. Right now the challenge is people are loath to share that information. One....

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